"Then maybe your brothers lied to you."
He shook his head. "They wouldn't. They would have killed her if they knew where to find her. And had they killed her, they would have boasted about it. Especially to me. You see, they suspect I helped Maryam run away after they killed her lover."
"And did you?"
"No. I wish I had, but the truth is I did nothing. She came to me for help, but I turned her away. As for my brothers, I am quite confident they did not kill her. And I must insist that you not speak to them, nor to anyone of my family. No one in my family had any contact with Maryam since she left. Not even me. And no one knows I am here talking to you today."
"That's not the way I generally do things," I said.
"Well, this is how you must do things in this case, or are you going to tell me to take my business elsewhere for the third time?"
I smiled and said, "All right. You're the client. I'll do it your way. If I run into a dead end because of your constraints, I'll let you know, and you'll decide how to proceed. Agreed?"
"Agreed. I'll take that coffee now."
I got us each a fresh cup, and he rolled himself a cigarette, which he lit, and one for me, which I laid aside for later.
I asked him a few more questions and noted the relevant answers in my notebook. Maryam was seventeen when she began the affair with the Christian man—now dead—which led to her expulsion from her father's household. She was eighteen when she died. What her life was like or how she'd sustained herself during the intervening eight months was unknown to her brother.
He talked a great deal about Maryam, showering me with useless information. She liked horses and flowers and had a beautiful singing voice. She baked the best bread in their village and was smart and funny. Up to her late teens she was also quite devout. He cursed the man who had seduced her. He loved his sister a great deal. His heart broke when she ran away from home, and shattered when she was found dead. He also blamed himself for rejecting her when she asked for his help and for not making a greater effort to remain in her life. He had chosen his role as a dutiful son to his father over that of a loving brother to his young sister. And now he was tormented to the point where he came to me, a Jew, for help.
Despite acquiescing to his demand not to speak with his brothers and father, I did get some information regarding them. His father was old, past seventy, and the leader of his clan and village. A strict man who believed in the traditional ways, who thought sons and especially daughters should know their place and obey their elders. There had been five older brothers. One had died during the Arab revolt against the British in 1937. Another had been killed in battle against Jewish forces in 1948. A third had joined a paramilitary group in Lebanon, promising when he left to return triumphant and expel all the Jews from Israel, and had not been heard of since.
"My two remaining brothers and I also fought against you," he told me, pride and defiance edging his voice. "I got this"—he gestured to his scar—"fighting up north. Did you fight in the war, Mr. Lapid?"
"Yes."
"In the north?"
"No. I fought in Jerusalem and in the Negev, for the most part."
"So we didn't fight one another."
Yes, we did, I thought. Whether you and I faced each other across a specific battlefield or not was not important. We were enemies, and perhaps we would be again in the future. None of that mattered to me. A woman was dead and her murderer was out there somewhere. And I had received money to find him. Anything else was extraneous and unimportant.
I looked him over, this gentle-seeming man. Even with the scar on his cheek, he did not look like a soldier. But, I reminded myself, I had met many such men, and many of them turned out to be excellent soldiers. War had the ability to shape men to fit the mold of a fighter.
I asked, "At no point during the eight months since she ran away did Maryam attempt to contact you?"
He shook his head.
"Is it possible that Maryam remained in contact with anyone in your village? One of the women, perhaps?"
"Not that I know. I don't think she did. We're a small village, Mr. Lapid, an extended family in a way. I would have heard something."
I tapped my pen on my notebook, thinking that I wouldn't be able to speak with any of the women either. Their husbands and fathers wouldn't allow it, even if Ahmed Jamalka did.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?" I asked, guessing that there wasn't.
He confirmed my guess with a shake of his head.
I scratched between my eyes. He had given me very little. Next to nothing, really, and his restrictions might hamper my investigation. But that was all right. He had paid for my services; he had the right to give me directions.
We exchanged telephone numbers where we could leave messages to each other, and I said I would give him a progress report in a week, or sooner if I learned something important before that.
I flipped the notebook closed and stared at him. He stared right back at me. I said, "There is a chance that you're wrong, you know. About your brothers, I mean."
He said nothing.
"What happens if, without speaking to your brothers, I discover that they killed your sister?"
He let out a long breath, and his hand went to his scar in what I perceived to be an involuntary motion.
"Then I have made a big mistake coming to you," he said finally, in a voice that was small yet resolute.
There was no more to say. I nodded. "All right, I'll get to it."
He got to his feet, glancing at the chessboard.
"Take the black bishop with the white queen. It's mate in three moves after that."
Then he turned and left the café. I took the cigarette he had rolled for me and sniffed it. Even unlit it had a rich, satisfying scent. I pulled the chessboard closer and moved the white queen as he'd instructed me. For once I played slow, trying to find a way for black to get out of its predicament. Three moves later white won. I smiled. Ahmed Jamalka had left with an oblique parting shot.
3
After Ahmed Jamalka had left, I began resetting the chessboard for another game. I played only against myself, and I always played lightning games, with less than a second between moves. It was the only way to play with yourself as the opponent without it becoming boring. When you made moves quickly, the game could shift in all sorts of unpredictable directions. I enjoyed playing like that. It was a great way to exercise the mind without actually thinking about anything.
Greta came over to my table and sat in the chair Jamalka had just vacated. "A new client," she said. "Business is picking up."
"Or maybe society is going down."
"Already? We've only been a country for eighteen months."
"Seventeen months, to be exact," I said with a smile. It was now October 20, 1949, and Israel had been independent since May 1948.
She ran the numbers in her mind. After a second she nodded. "You're right. Seventeen months. Why, that's even worse. You would think it would take us more time than that to screw things up."
I said, "We have three thousand years of experience as a people, maybe that's why." I showed her the rolled cigarette. "He gave me this as a gift."
"That was nice of him." Greta sniffed the lingering smoke in the air. "It smells better than what you usually smoke."
"And tastes better too. But don't get used to it. This is the only one I have. Soon it's back to my usual dreck."
"I'm sorry to hear that. And I'll be sorry to smell it, too. You know, I was looking over at the two of you while you were talking. There was one time I was sure he was about to leap across the table at you, fists first."